What is HIPAA? The Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that imposes
portability, nondiscrimination, and other requirements on certain
employer-sponsored health plans. There are also regulations covering
how employers must protect employees’ medical privacy rights as well
as the electronic disclosure of employees’ medical information.

Various HIPAA provisions aim to protect the privacy and
security of your employees’ and their dependents’ health records.
The privacy rules apply to both paper and electronic records, and
the security rules apply only to electronic records. HIPAA’s medical-information
privacy and security requirements generally apply to “covered entities,”
namely, health plans, healthcare information clearinghouses, and healthcare
providers, but many HIPAA requirements also apply to a covered entity’s
“business associates.”